Il Giardino

On a bicycle ride down the Via Appia Antica from Rome, we were hungry by the time we found this place near the tomb of Cecilia Metella. The place seemed very promising, a charming garden full of tables under large orange trees, flowers, grass, a small play set with swings, etc., and friendly staff who all seemed to be family members. However, the experience was exceedingly mixed.
As I said, the place was set in a charming garden with lots of shade, tress, flowers, and other plants, a welcome and pleasant place to relax. The play set was great for the kids. The people were friendly and service was pretty good, if a bit haphazard.
However, the food did not live up to the rest. One daughter ordered roasted chicken which was not on the menu but something they said they happened to have. It was actually excellent, but oddly presented as random bits of chopped-​up chicken just tossed on a plate. The elder daughter ordered one thing on the menu but they came back and told her they didn’t have it, so they suggested roast pork, which was not on the menu. it ended up being cold slices of plain pork in a cold, bland gravy. It was not good. My wife and I got panini which ended up being untoasted, plain pieces of bread with nothing but simply enormous slabs of mozzarella and giant slices of hard, unripe tomatoes (in Italy, in the middle of summer!). There was a little olive oil soaked into the bread. We were barely able to eat them and even though they had only two ingredients, aside from the oil, they we so crude that we had to do damage control just to keep them together to eat them. They were also heavy and even though they were not disgusting, after a little bit, we just got ill and sick of eating them. Desserts looked good but the first cake was mouldy and wet. They were very gracious in apologizing and replacing, it, though, yet the replacement was only mediocre. My elder daughter is convinced that they did not really have a menu as such but simply served whatever was available in the fridge or left over from the home kitchen. I am not sure that she is correct, but there is significant evidence to support her argument. All in all, the food is really hit or miss. There is a chance of getting something good, but one should expect just random, crudely prepared odds and ends. I would recommend going elsewhere but, unfortunately, there are not many places in this rural neighborhood.